Garrett's Hongo's work has established the Asian American return narrative as a significant literary form. A series of moves away from the place of his birth in Volcano, Hawaii, in 1951, first to Oahu and then to Los Angeles, have shaped Hongo's life, but his writing represents an act of return to Hawaii and the recovery of a complex family and cultural history there. Like other poets of his generation of Asian American writers maturing in the 1980's, Hongo is aware of the effects of The Exclusion Laws, the Japanese Internment during World War II and the effects of the C and H Sugar Strike in Hawaii, but his central concern is the compassionate understanding of the hidden family history of first, second, and third generation Japanese Americans. Through a carefully crafted, but colloquial…
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Citation: Slowik, Mary. "Garrett Hongo". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 March 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12250, accessed 19 April 2024.]
